Rwanda president blasts ICTR for inefficiency, conflicts of interest News
Rwanda president blasts ICTR for inefficiency, conflicts of interest

[JURIST] Rwandan President Paul Kagame [official profile; BBC profile] has criticized the UN-funded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) [official website; JURIST news archive] as inefficient, and said that several ICTR employees should be testifying before the court for their involvement in the 1994 genocide the court was established to investigate. In a press conference [recorded video] Wednesday, Kagame noted that the ICTR has convicted fewer than 40 people [ICTR backgrounder] since its inception in 1997 at a cost of $1.5 billion US.

In recent months, the ICTR has convicted a former Rwandan mayor for ordering executions, upheld the acquittals of two high-ranking officials, and sentenced a retired army officer to 25 years on genocide charges [JURIST reports]. The ICTR has delivered 26 convictions and three acquittals since its establishment, and the UN has set a 2008 deadline for it to complete trials for 26 other suspects currently under indictment. The Rwandan government estimates the 1994 genocide [BBC backgrounder] left at least 937,000 Tutsis and some Hutus dead. VOA has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

No lynchings reported in US for first time

On December 30, 1952, the Tuskegee Institute reported that 1952 was the first year of no lynchings of African Americans in the United States in the 71 years it had kept records. Learn more about lynching and listen to Billie Holiday's jazz recording of the 1938 protest song Strange Fruit.

USSR established

On December 30, 1922, representatives of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Transcaucus approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During World War II, the USSR would also annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Moldova. Learn more about the history of the USSR from the BBC.